Affect, memory & social cognition
(2000)

Tools

"... At the heart of emotion, mood, and any other emotionally charged event are states experienced as simply feeling good or bad, energized or enervated. These states—called core affect—influence reflexes, perception, cognition, and behavior and are influenced by many causes internal and external, but pe ..."

At the heart of emotion, mood, and any other emotionally charged event are states experienced as simply feeling good or bad, energized or enervated. These states—called core affect—influence reflexes, perception, cognition, and behavior and are influenced by many causes internal and external, but people have no direct access to these causal connections. Core affect can therefore be experienced as freefloating (mood) or can be attributed to some cause (and thereby begin an emotional episode). These basic processes spawn a broad framework that includes perception of the core-affect-altering properties of stimuli, motives, empathy, emotional meta-experience, and affect versus emotion regulation; it accounts for prototypical emotional episodes, such as fear and anger, as core affect attributed to something plus various nonemotional processes. Most major topics in psychology and every major problem faced by humanity involve emotion. Perhaps the same could be said of cognition. Yet, in the psychology of human beings, with passions as well as reasons, with feelings as well as thoughts, it is the emotional side that remains the more mysterious. Psychology and humanity can progress without considering emotion—about as fast

"... During the last two decades, researchers have collected a decisive amount of experimental evidence about the fundamental role of Emotion on cognitive processing. Emotional phenomena have been correlated with effective decision-making processes, memory, learning and other high-level cognitive capa ..."

During the last two decades, researchers have collected a decisive amount of experimental evidence about the fundamental role of Emotion on cognitive processing. Emotional phenomena have been correlated with effective decision-making processes, memory, learning and other high-level cognitive capabilities and skills (e.g. risk assessment). In this paper we will describe an ongoing work that aims to design new Agent Architectures influenced by what has been learned in psychology and neurosciences about Emotion-cognition interaction. In particular, we will present an Agent architecture that includes several emotional-like mechanisms, namely: emotional evaluation functions, Emotion--biased processing, emotional tagging and mood congruent memory. These emotional-like mechanisms are intended to increase the performance and adaptability of Agents operating in real-time environments. We will also introduce Pyrosim, a MAS platform we have developed to serve as an appropriate test-bed for Emotional-based Architectures.

"... ABSTRACT—This study reveals that older adults have a positivity effect in long-term autobiographical memory and that a positivity bias can be induced in younger adults by a heightened motivation to regulate current emotional well-being. Three hundred nuns, ages 47 to 102 years, recalled personal inf ..."

ABSTRACT—This study reveals that older adults have a positivity effect in long-term autobiographical memory and that a positivity bias can be induced in younger adults by a heightened motivation to regulate current emotional well-being. Three hundred nuns, ages 47 to 102 years, recalled personal information originally reported 14 years earlier. They did so under experimental conditions that repeatedly primed them to focus on their current emotional states or on their memory accuracy, or that provided no instructional focus (control condition). Both older control participants and participants who were focused on emotional states showed a tendency to remember the past more positively than they originally reported in 1987. In contrast, both younger control participants and participants who were focused on accuracy tended to remember the past more negatively than originally reported. Older people experience a subjective quality of life that is comparable to, if not better than, that of younger adults and also display superior abilities to regulate emotional states (Carstensen, Pasupathi, Mayr, &amp; Nesselroade, 2000; Gross et al., 1997; Mroczek, 2001). In this study, we examined implications of age-related improvements in emotion regulation for autobiographical memory. Recalling distant personal experiences involves reconstruction (Bartlett, 1932; Singer &amp; Salovey, 1993); the recounting of a personal experience differs from previous descriptions and is influenced by direct retrieval processes and subjective factors, such as current mood and motivation (Bower &amp; Forgas,

"... In this article, the author discusses the limitations of the egocentric view of self in which self serves as an automatic filter, inhibiting access to alternative representations of others ’ thoughts and feelings. The author then outlines a protocentric model, the self-as-distinct (SAD) model, in wh ..."

In this article, the author discusses the limitations of the egocentric view of self in which self serves as an automatic filter, inhibiting access to alternative representations of others ’ thoughts and feelings. The author then outlines a protocentric model, the self-as-distinct (SAD) model, in which generic represen-tations of prototypic others serve as the default; representations of self, specific others, or categories encode only distinctiveness from generic knowledge about prototypic others. Thus, self-knowledge is distributed both in generic representations in which self and prototypic others are undifferentiated and in a self-representation that encodes distinctiveness. The self-representation does not serve to make predictions about others because it encodes how self differs from the generic representation of others. Predictions that are the same about self and others are protocentric, based on generic knowledge that serves as the default. The SAD model parsimoniously accounts for many inconsistent findings across various domains in social cognition. Answering questions about other people’s covert psychological processes, their likely thoughts and feelings, seems difficult for at least two reasons. First, people do not have direct access to other people’s ongoing or likely future psychological experiences. Sec-ond, there is no one-to-one correspondence between events and other people’s reactions to these events; people do not always react the same way to a given event, and the same psychological reaction can be elicited in many different ways. Despite these apparently insurmountable challenges, adults, and even young children, have little trouble answering questions about other peo-ple’s likely future reactions and psychological experiences. In contrast to the apparent ease with which lay people make such predictions about others, theoreticians and researchers have in-vested much effort to resolve the question of how such predictions are made. The major issue of contention and the focus of this article is the status of self in making predictions about other people’s thoughts and feelings. One approach to the question of how people make predictions about other people’s psychological experiences holds that individ-

"... Long-term memories are influenced by the emotion experienced during learning as well as by the emotion experienced during memory retrieval. The present article reviews the literature addressing the effects of emotion on retrieval, focusing on the cognitive and neurological mechanisms that have been ..."

Long-term memories are influenced by the emotion experienced during learning as well as by the emotion experienced during memory retrieval. The present article reviews the literature addressing the effects of emotion on retrieval, focusing on the cognitive and neurological mechanisms that have been revealed. The reviewed research suggests that the amygdala, in combination with the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, plays an important role in the retrieval of memories for emotional events. The neural regions necessary for online emotional processing also influence emotional memory retrieval, perhaps through the reexperience of emotion during the retrieval process.

"... A socially optimized learning approach, which integrates diverse theoretical perspectives, places men who have sex with men (MSM) in an interactive virtual environment designed to simulate the emotional, interpersonal, and contextual narrative of an actual sexual encounter while challenging and chan ..."

A socially optimized learning approach, which integrates diverse theoretical perspectives, places men who have sex with men (MSM) in an interactive virtual environment designed to simulate the emotional, interpersonal, and contextual narrative of an actual sexual encounter while challenging and changing MSM’s more automatic patterns of risky responses. MSM assume a character’s identity and are scaffolded in their decision-making and relearning process by supportive, and often humorous, peer coaches who encourage situated learning of self-regulatory and behavioral skills, and tailor and frame their responses to be responsive to the men’s behavioral choices. In a longitudinal design, participants were randomly assigned to receive either an interactive video (IAV) intervention with peer counseling or to a peer-counseling-alone control. Compared to the counseling alone, men who also received the IAV reduced risky anal sex behaviors and increased protected anal sex behaviors. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2006.00001.x AIDS remains a serious health threat nationally and globally. In fact, the prevalence of new cases of a variety of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) is increasing among

"... Affective primes may impact ensuing behavior through condition and person effects. However, previous research has not experimentally disentangled these two sources of influence in affective priming paradigms. In the current research, we simultaneously examine the influence of condition factors, in t ..."

Affective primes may impact ensuing behavior through condition and person effects. However, previous research has not experimentally disentangled these two sources of influence in affective priming paradigms. In the current research, we simultaneously examine the influence of condition factors, in terms of prime valence, and person factors, in terms of affect reactivity and personality. In both studies, undergraduate participants (total N = 174) were primed with either positive or negative affective stimuli (words, Study 1; pictures, Study 2) prior to judging the likability of a neutral target (Arabic characters, Study 1; inkblots, Study 2). Although we did observe between-condition differences for positive and negative primes, person-level effects were more consistent predictors of target ratings.Affect reactivity (affectTime 2, controllingTime 1) to the primes predicted evaluative judgments,even in the absence of condition effects.In addition,the personality traits of Neuroticism (Study 1) and behavioral inhibition system sensitivity (Study 2) predicted evaluative judgments of neutral targets following negative affective primes.With effects for condition, affect reactivity, and personality, our results suggest that affective primes influence ensuing behaviors through both informational and affective means. Research using affective priming methodologies should take into account both condition and person-level effects. The use of affective (i.e., emotional) primes has increased dramatically in recent years, with affective priming procedures